We woke this morning to a mackerel-clouded sky somewhere in the Outback, or to give it its UK term Back of Beyond. After preparing and eating breakfast and watching green parrots go about their early morning callisthenics we climbed into the bus.
After a slow drive across the desert we arrived at Gosse Bluff. For such an innocent sounding name, this was a site of substantial devastation when an explosion ten times the size of that detonated at Hiroshima was unleashed in the Australian desert. Okay, it was over 10 million years ago and caused by a meteor hitting the earth but the scars are still there to be seen.
The original crater was 25km in diameter but this had been lost to erosion and the expanse of time. What is left is a crater that is still 5km wide and one that has 'bent' the earth's crust to a depth of around 4km. It was an impressive sight and a reminder of how fragile and precious this planet is.
Above: The meteorite crater on the horizon
After a brief stop at a water hole, and it's freezing cold water, we visited Simpson's Gap which is, as the title suggests, a gap in the MacDonnell Ranges. These are a long crest of hills the run for 400 miles across the Great Sandy Desert. There was nothing particularly striking about the gap, as the absence of something so often isn't, but what was remarkable were the Rock Wallabies living among the fallen debris. To quote Wikipedia;
"The medium-sized, often colourful and extremely agile rock-wallabies live where rocky, rugged and steep terrain can provide daytime refuge. Males are slightly larger than females with a body length of up to 59 cm and a 70 cm long tail.
Rock-wallabies are nocturnal and live a fortress existence spending their days in steep, rocky, complex terrain in some kind of shelter (cave, overhang or vegetation) and ranging out into surrounding terrain at night for feed. The greatest activity occurs three hours before sunrise and after sunset."
What it failed to add was that they were almost impossible to see unless they were moving, and their greatest activity seemed to consist of jumping from rock to rock and evading the massed paparazzi of our tour group.
Above: Spot the Wallaby?
And so to Alice Springs once again, where we swap tours; the dry and arid desert for the warm and humid rainforest, and with it a chance to stretch the legs, grab some food and a pint or two.
After buying a piece of original Aboriginal art from the artist (so fresh the paint is still drying) we are now sat in a bar, sinking a cold beer or two watching Fawlty Towers on one TV screen whilst the others blast out Kylie Minogue from an MTV channel.
Before anyone comments, we didn't ask for Fawlty Towers to be put on - it was the choice of the young barman. Maybe he heard our accents (although I hasten to add that I sound nothing like Basil Fawlty and don't anyone dare suggest that my travelling companion reminds them of Sybil) but he claimed that his father had introduced him to the delights of this quintessential British sitcom. Interesting, but I hope he doesn't think we're all like Basil and Sybil.
Whatever the reason, it rounded off a memorable and eventful day and our last in the Outback. Tomorrow we fly to Darwin to see how the North of the Northern Territories live in their hot and steamy climate. It would be hard pushed to be more memorable than our time in the Outback but with crocodiles, bandicoots and tree-rats on the list of residents and I wouldn't bet against it.
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